The Eastern Red Cedar is really a juniper.

In the cobweb recesses of my aging mind I have two youthful memories of junipers. One was to make a tea to “force out” measles*. The other was how horribly prickly they were when someone shoved you into them.

As for “forcing out” measles that is highly doubtful. Measles make themselves known without having to be prodded to debut by any conifer tea. However junipers do have the potent antiviral compound deoxypodophyllotoxin (DPT) which has been shown to be effective against viruses that cause the flu and herpes. So maybe juniper tea did have some effect on the intensity or duration of the measles.  The DPT is found in berries and the leaves, aka needles. I wonder if it is also in gin which is flavored with juniper.

Southern Cedar, Juniperus silicicola

Common in the eastern United States — officially east of the 100th meridian —  is Juniperus virginiana, top photo,  joo-NIP-er-us ver-jin-ee-AY-nuh. It is also the species most ornamental cultivars are bred from. Unfortunately this particular juniper is call the Eastern Red Cedar. It is not a cedar. It is a Juniper. The Southern Cedar, Juniperus silicicola, left, joo-NIP-er-us sill-liss-sih-KOLE-uh, also is not a cedar being a subspecies of the J. virginiana.   One can use the “berries” of those two “cedars” like juniper berries because they are junipers. The berries, however, are not berries. They are modified cones. Also while the foliage of many junipers can be used the foliage of the J. virginana and the J. silicicola cannot be used. Also to be avoided entirely are J. sabina and J. oxycedrus, both from southern Europe. J. sabina is often planted as an ornamental in the United States. Small junipers used in landscaping might be of European origin and not useable in any way. Make sure of their identification.

J. sabina, often planted in North America as an ornamental, cannot be used either berries or leaves.

Besides medicinal uses, which includes treating diabetes, the berries are employed for flavoring, most notably in gin and the French liqueur Chartreuse. It takes the “berries” two to three years to ripen. Mature but still green berries are used to flavor gin. Mature blue berries are used to flavor game. They are also used to flavor stuffing, marinades and stews. In Europe one cannot make authentic sauerbraten or sauerkraut without juniper berries. In the southern Alps a dark syrup is made from the berries and is traditionally eaten as a dessert with cream or hot milk. (Some berries are as much as 30% sugar.)

As with many herbs used medicinally or as a spice juniper berries should be used sparingly. Think flavoring, not food. They irritate the kidneys and are diuretic. Juniper extracts should be avoided. They may be fatal.  Florida’s Seminole Indians had many medical uses for the Easter Red Cedar. They used it to treat cold symptoms, swollen joints, stiff neck or back, swollen legs, eye diseases, fever, headache, dizziness and diarrhea.

J. communis, the most common juniper in northern climates around the globe.

The bush I was pushed into as a kid and pushed others into was J. communis, left, the most  common juniper in northern latitudes around the world, joo-NIP-er-us koh-MUNE-iss. It’s also the juniper that flavors gin. There are 13 species of Juniper in North America, two in Europe, some say 19 in North America and maybe 60 in the world. Definitely used by native Americans were J. californica, J. communis, J. communis var. montana, J. deppeana [aka J. pachyphlaea] J. horizontalis, J. monosperma, J. occidentalis, J. osterosperma [aka J. utahensis] J. scopulorum,  J. tetragona,  J. virginiana and Juniperus silicicola, the latter often called a variation of J. viriginana.

On the left is the bark of the red cedar (a Juniper) and on the right the bark of a white cedar, a Chamaecyparis thyoides

How the berries were used varied from tribe to tribe and species to species. The Acoma mixed the berries of the J. monosperma with chopped meat, put it into a clean deer stomach, then roasted it all. The Yavapai pulverized the berries of the J. deppeana, soaked them in water, put them in the mouth, sucked all the juice out, then spat out the solid matter. The Cahuilla dried the berries of the J. californica in the sun or ate them fresh. They also ground the berries into flour  and used them to make mush or bread. The Diegueno considered the previous species berries as famine food only. But the Kawaiisu Indians deseeded the same berries, pounded the berries into a meal, moistened, molded the meal into cakes, dried them then ate them. The Paiute took the berries from the J. occidentals and mixed them with mashed deer liver for food. Or, they stored them in a grass-lined holes in the ground for winter use. The Apache boiled the berries of the J. osteosperma and ate them plain. But the Mescalero took J. monosperma berries, roasted them, added water, and made the mixture into a gravy.

Elsewhere the berries of these junipers have been use: J. tetragoan (Mexico) J. bermudiana (Bermuda) J. drupacea (Europe and Middle East) and in Asia J. chinensis, J. conferta, J. recurva and J. rigida.

In some species of juniper young leaves look very different than older leaves.

One confusing element of identifying some junipers is that their juvenile leaves look different than their mature leaves, left. Young leaves of species like  J. virginiana and J. chinensis are pointed, sharp even. Older leaves are overlapping and scale-like. Other junipers have only pointy leaves, hard and sharp. Some have a mixture of the two.

Juniperus comes from the Dead Latin iuniperus. Where that came from is not known but the best linguistic guess is iuncus meaning reed or rush. That might be related to an earlier Egyptian word ganu meaning reed, cane, shrub or bush. Iuniperus does NOT mean young — as in “junior” or evergreen. That is Wikipathetica nonsense. Iuniperus did get translated into Le genevrier in French from whence we get the word “gin.”

Franciscus Sylvius created a medicine we now call gin.

Gin was invented by Dutch physician Franciscus Sylvius, right,  who wanted to make a diuretic medicine. He succeeded. In English the word “gin”  first appeared in print in 1714. It was a very inexpensive alcoholic beverage to produce and became extremely popular. Alexander Pope in 1738 described it as  “A spiritous liquor, the exorbitant use of which had almost destroyed the lowest rank of the People till it was restrained by an act of Parliament.” Actually Parliament passed Gin Acts in the 1730s and 1740s, which caused rioting. Everyone was swilling gin, kids to grannies, causing artist William Hogarth to engrave the print “Gin Lane” in 1751, below left.

Hogarth’s engraving Gin Lane show scenes of drunkeness and various illegal activities whereas his engraving of the same period, Beer Street, show happy, industrious people.

At one point of the 15,000 drinking places in London over half served only gin. More taxes and watering down the gin finally turned the alcoholic tide by the 1760s.  The reason why gin took off was it was cheap, particularly compared to foreign booze that was charged tariffs. But there was also a cultural element. Beer was viewed positively and gin negatively. Hogarth’s other famous print, “Beer Street” shows positive scenes. The negative connotations of the time are still found in English with disparaging terms such as gin joint and gin mills.

Louisiana’s Cajuns are the descendants of French Canadians that were forcibly driven from Nova Scotia. Longfellows poem, Evangeline, gained cult then cultural status representing the inhumanity of their expulsion.

There’s one more bit of linguistic history regarding the J. virginana. The early French to Canada called it baton rouge, or red stick because the bark and wood have a red tint. When the Acadians were driven out of Nova Scotia and went to Louisiana to be come Cajuns — read Longfellow’s Poem, Evangeline — they found the Southern Cedar and named the capital of Louisiana for it, Baton Rouge.

To reiterate the berries of J. virginana and J. silicicola (Eastern Red Cedar and Southern Cedar) can be used but not the foliage. J. sabina and J. oxycedrus are to be avoided completely, berries and leaves.

This handsom bird should properly be called the Juniper Waxwing.

As for wildlife the Cedar Waxwing likes the “berries” of the Eastern Red Cedar so much it was named after it. The J. virginiana also has one species of butterfly, the Juniper Hairstreak, that always lays it eggs only on the Eastern Red Cedar.

Bags can be made from the bark fiber of the Easter Red Cedar and the Southern Cedar.

* Did you know that measles might be a milder, human form of a fatal disease in animals? Researchers think measles came from distemper and jumped from dog to man about 4,000 years ago. Man befriended dog and dog gave him a disease. I had both kinds of measles when I was a kid, “German” and “Old Fashion” back to back, one right after the other. I was out of school for nearly a month… it was wonderful…

Use. I mainly use juniper berries as a source of yeast and bacteria for sourdough bread. I put a tablespoon or so of berries in non-chlorinated water with a little sugar for a couple of days, then use that water in mixing the dough.  And when I make pickles I add a few berries to each jar for flavoring.

IF YOU ARE PREGNANT AVOID JUNIPER BERRIES: They can cause uterine contractions. Cows that eat a lot of juniper berries have a lot of end-of-pregnancy-issues.

Edible flowers add color, texture and sometimes flavor to a salad or dish

Chinese Perfume Plant, Queensland Silver Wattle, Cloves, Chinese Lotus, Blue Lotus, Screwpine, Turpentine Tree, Sweet Autum Clematis, St. Anthony’s Turnip, Quince

Above, edible flowers by Leggiadro.com

Until I get more ambitious or there buds a blossoming fragrant hue for more, I will end this series at 20 articles, or 200 flowers. I still have to add two separate large articles but that will have to wait some wordpress issues and file sizes are resolved.

Among all the flowers in the world the one touted as the most exquisitely scented is Agalia odorata, the Chinese Perfume Plant. Think vanilla with spicy undertones. Bright yellow, the blossoms are dried and used for scenting tea. However, the leaves are also edible, steamed as a vegetable. Native to southern China it can be found in flower gardens about the globe. While you can’t tell it in this picture the blossom are about the size of BBs. Sometimes the flower is called Mock Lime, or Juran. It can be a year round plant in zones 9 and 10. Otherwise, in a pot it goes.

There are several edible Acacia blossoms and several Acacia with other edible parts. Featured here is Acacia podalyriaefolia, or the Queensland Silver Wattle. The blossoms can be mixed in a light batter similar to elder flowers and fried into small fritters. They are often served with sugar and whipped cream. Other Acacia with edible blossoms include A. spectabilis and A. oshanessii. While a native to Australia it is naturalized in Malaysia, Africa, India and South America. It is also used as an ornamental tree in other areas.

The flower buds of the Syzygium aromaticum is your common clove, dried. They are used  for seasoning with ham, sausages, apples, mincemeat, cheese, pies, preserves, and vermouth. In some places cloves are chewed after dinner like a mint. The oil is used to flavor gum, beverages, ice cream, baked goods, and candies. What most folks don’t know is the tree’s fruit is edible as are its dried flowers.  A close relative S. malaccense, has edible flowers as well as young shoots and leaves.

One cannot write about edible flowers without mentioning the Lotus, Nelumbo nucifera, also called Pink Lotus, Chinese Lotus, and Lin ngau. This is the plant that produces the famous roots in so many Asian dishes. Its roots can be boiled, pickled, stir-fried even preserved in sugar. The seeds are also eaten raw, roasted, boiled, pickled or candied. What a lot of foraging books don’t tell you is 1) the roots are really labor intensive to dig up, and 2) the blossoms are  edible. The petals are used as garnishes or are floated in soups.

Closely related to the lotus is Nymphaea stellata, also called the Blue Lotus of India. That it can be white shall be overlooked for now. Its roots are sometimes eaten raw or roasted. The seeds are edible as well, usually parched. The flowers are edible. And as so often the case, botanists cannot leave the name alone. The Blue Lotus of India is also known as Nymphaea nouchali. Now, doesn’t that make more sense?

I can’t remember if it was Ray Mears or Les Hiddins who first brought my attention to the Pandanus, or in this particular case Pandanus tectorius. The Pandanus is a palm. It’s also called the Nicobar Breadfruit and Screwpine. The fruit pulp can be eaten raw or cooked or made into a flour. It’s also used to make a local alcoholic drink. Young leaves are eaten as are the aerial roots, terminal bud and seeds. The flowers and pollen are edible as well. Native from Malaysia to Polynesia, it is an ornamental in warmer areas elsewhere.  I’m reasonably sure there is a stand of them growing in Dreher Park, West Palm Beach. Fl., but I haven’t sorted out which species it is.

The name Turpentine tree,  Pistacia terebinthus, does not sound too edible. Perhaps it all depends upon where you live and how hungry you are. Actually it has an esteemed relative we eat all the time. Native to the Mediterranean region, the turpentine tree is in the same genus as the Pistachio. Its green seed kernals are eaten or pressed for their oil. The immature fruits are preserved, usually in vinegar and salt, and used as a relish. Young leaves are cooked and used as a vegetable. The sap is used to make a chewing gum and the fresh flowers are edible raw. Some caution should be used as this tree, like pistachios, is closely related to poison ivy/oak and poison sumac, along with cashews and mangos. Many people are allergic to the entire group.

Attractive ornamentals are often toxic but not the Clematis maximowicziana, or Sweet Autumn Clematis, a popular vine among gardeners in North America. What I find interesting is how often English or country garden sites often just lable every plant they grow as poisonous. It must just come with the mind set. The Sweet Autumn Clematis is definitely edible. Young leaves are parboiled then are boiled or stir fried. Young buds are used the same way or pickled. The flowers are also edible. Yet like so many internet sites that copy each other one says for them all:  All parts of plant are poisonous if ingested. Perhaps if eaten raw they are. Cooked they are not which is good as this is a popular garden specimen.

Buttercups are usually a family foragers stay away from. It was one of the few flowers I was told as a kid that were poisonous that really are. They grew in a damp spot right behind the house. But not every one in the family will make you ill. Among the edible members is Ranunculus bulbosus, also called St. Anthony’s Turnip. I don’t know if that is a compliment to St. Anthony or not. Caution is recommended as the plant can have a strong, acrid juice that can cause blistering. Bulbs of the plant are eaten after boiling or thorough drying. The young flowers are pickled.  In North America the plant is found in the eastern US except for Florida, and also growing along the west coast. It skips Texas north, the high plains, Rocky Mountains and desert southwest.

The 200th edible flower in this series is the Quince, one of my mother’s favorites, Cydonia oblonga. She has a flowering Quince right outside her front door and delights in watching birds nest in it. She also likes to complain about its thorns. Quince used to be a common fruit a century ago but needed to be prepared. Even the great botanist Luther Burbank said before he began breeding better cultivars to make them more edible, “take one quince, and barrel of sugar and sufficient water…” While quinces have fallen out of favor in the United States they are still popular elsewhere particularly in the Mediterranean region. The fruits are cooked, stewed, used in pies, jams or marmalades, fruit leather, candies and conserves. The flowers are also edible and in some places the leaves are used to wrap food like Greek dolmas.

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Applewood forks, some suitable for pipe making.

Apple was wood we chose and shaped together

Time edits your memories. It sands off the rough edges that were once painfully sharp. It makes some moments clearer by evaporating the fog of being involved. Time throws most of your past into some hard-to-open memory dump. There it hides without an access code until something triggers it which happened recently to me because of the approaching Fathers’ Day.

When you’re young what you know is so terribly important because you don’t know much. Your small amount of knowledge is very precious. That tends to get overwritten with adult life. Other things become more important taking up space and time. When one reaches the other end of life those childhood memories, faded and ignored for so long, often return sometimes with an echo of sadness, sometimes with a sweetness long forgotten. Writing about Linden Tree blossoms recently brought back a memory from those early days, an era when we did not have a TV or a phone. Computers were experimental and the size of houses. They wouldn’t be common for half a century. For entertainment we played cards on Saturday night, usually Sixty-Three while enjoying burnt popcorn dressed up with oleo washed down with flat soda.

Vasilios Tsapatsaris, 31

I had two fathers, one who sired and one who raised.  The sire, Vasilios Tsapatsaris, died young, only 33, when I was six. It’s odd now being more than twice as old as he lived, as if I’ve ended up being the mature adult for both of us. He never got a chance to live to the age of contemplation, to out-live the insults and errors of ones youth. He didn’t live long enough to know what kind of man he was or could be. Nor did he live to see his son or daughter grown. For most of my life he has been a long, low gravestone in a Greek cemetery far away, far more a mystery than a man.

And then there is he who raised me, my stepfather, “Dad.” He’s a mystery, too. Quiet. A gentle giant. A heavy-weight boxer had he chosen that career but did not. He preferred to fix watches and clocks. But, dad could lift a motor out of a car by hand and not grunt. I saw him do it once. I also remember a time when I was a freshman in high school. I weighed 135 pounds and was arguing with my mother. It was getting heated and loud. Dad came over and with just his left hand — he was right-handed — lifted me off the floor… that got my attention. With my legs dangling in mid-air he calmly told me not to ever argue with my mother again. Message received. I lived with him and my mother for some 18 years but I never knew him well. Yet his influence was strong. His presence guiding. I’m not sure we ever discussed anything of significance but we did things together. Neither of us liked team sports but on April 8th, 1974 we watched Hank Aaron break Babe Ruth’s homerun record. It was good for him, me and Hank. Another thing we did together involved the Linden Tree, or Basswood as we called it.

We’d pick just the right apple branch

Dad smoked a pipe so we made pipes. We didn’t make pipes because we had to, or because the store-bought ones were bad. We made pipes because we could and it was enjoyable and the evenings long especially in the winter. First we’d go out into the local fields and wood lots and look over several wild apple trees. They weren’t crab apples but apples trees from tossed away cores and opportunistic seeds. Every apple seed is totally different than the parent. One never knows what apple tree awaits in a seed. We examined the progeny closely.

Applewood was the briar of choice in that it is a sweet wood. We’d find a large branch to whittle the bowl out of. It also had to have an intersecting smaller branch at just the right angle to receive the stem. This selection of wood was then roughly carved, and done so rather quickly, in a matter of a couple of hours. When it was a rough pipe shape into simmering water it went. Boiling the carved block drove any sap out so the bowl wouldn’t crack as it dried or when hot tobacco coals were in it.

Coppiced basswood provided the stem

After several hours of simmering, the wood was allowed to cool.  Next the drilling began, creating the bowl and then the delicate task of drilling the much smaller intersecting stem holder. Once drilled and the holes met into the simmering water it went again to make sure all the sap was gone. Later the bowl was carefully shaped and sanded until smooth and presentable. Final polishing was done by rubbing the bowl on the side of your nose. The oil on your nose makes the polished wood shiny. Now it was time to make a stem.

For the stem we would find a basswood that had been coppiced, that is, the tree was cut down and sprouts had sprung. There one finds not only some of the best edible parts of the basswood in spring but also young stems with soft centers. We’d find some the right size, take them home, remove the bark, size them to the stem hole and then with a wire ream out the core. With a bit of sanding and a twist the pipe was complete, ready to be stoked with Dad’s old standby tobacco, Prince Albert… in a can.. which later would hold earthworms for fishing.  We made some corncob pipes, simple, much easier, but they never commanded the pride of an applewood pipe. And when chewing wore the stem down another was easily made. I still have one of those bowls we made, a concrete connection do Dad. 

Pipe Maker and dad, Robert H. Jordan, age 33

We lost Dad about 13 years ago, near father’s day. He was 86. A man with a wry sense of humor, he told me not long before he died that he didn’t feel any different in his eighties than he did when he was in his twenties.

“That,” he said, “proved what a pathetic young man I was.”

Somehow I doubt that.

Contemporary Hunter-Gatherer

An Australian study tells us that modern day hunter gatherers get 64% of their energy from things that move, 36% from plants, basically two thirds flesh, one third non-flesh. The creatures we eat are usually nutritionally dense. This does not hold true for plants. While plants can provide important minerals, vitamins, antioxidants and necessary trace elements most of them don’t pack a caloric punch. Many if not most plants take more energy to collect, prepare and consume then we get back in calories. Dandelion greens could be a classic example.

Dandelion Greens

We have to find the dandelion greens, pick them, clean them, and in a true survival situation find the fuel to cook them, something to cook them in and good water to cook them in. That takes a lot of energy and time. For that dandelion leaves offer us little, and while the root is edible it is quite bitter. Conversely, a starchy root that is edible raw, such as sea kale, Crambe maritima, would be a prime edible. It has a large root, particularly at the end of the growing season and is edible raw. It’s easy to find, easy to dig up. That’s energy positive. It’s a caloric staple. Unfortunately it does not grow in warmer climates but Bull Thistle does and is easy to find. They populate pastures. Sea Kale populates European shores and can be found on the California and Oregon coasts.

Blossoming Sea Kale

In a survival situation (frankly life in general) if you are not taking in more calories then you are expending to get food you are inching towards starvation. This is why we don’t climb a pine tree to get a teaspoon of pine nuts tasty and edible as they are. When one needs to forage caloric staples become the prime food focus right after animals.

After a recent class in West Palm Beach I was asked to compile a list of local caloric staples. It’s not quite as easy as one might think. In the south end of the state there are edible coconuts. On the north end no coconuts but some almost two-season bull thistles. In between there’s quite a smattering of calorie positive wild food. This list is not meant to be definitive and not necessarily in caloric order though generally it is.

Winged Yam must be cooked.

If I had to pick one local wild plant to top the list it would be the Winged Yam (Dioscorea alata.) It is the yam you buy in the grocery store just gone wild. Under cultivation they grow long and tubular and often over 100 pounds. Left on their own in untilled soil they get lumpy and usually weigh between five and 20 pounds. Easy to identify, the root is usually just a few inches below the surface thus it takes very few calories to dig them up. Not edible raw they do need to be cooked, boiled or roasted. But one would use them just like one would potatoes. Said another way every Winged Yam you see in the wild, on average, is like finding a 10-pound bag of potatoes. Also, it is slightly watery hence another name, the water yam. But that liquid serves a purpose. If you cut a root in half the water seals the uncooked half, preserving it. My video is here. 

Milkweed Vine fruit tastes like potatoes and zucchini.

Next on the local menu is Milkweed Vine (Morrenia odorata). Resembling a chayote (Sechium edule)  it has more vitamin C than the oranges it climbs over as a vine. Indeed, that is why Florida has spent millions of dollars to eliminate it, unsuccessfully. Nearly all of the plant above ground is edible but prized is the fruit. It should be picked when about the size of a tennis ball then boiled or roasted for about 40 minutes. The flavor is a cross between a zucchini and a potato. More to the point unless hit by a hard frost or a bad freeze the vine produces continually.  Abundant, continuous production, nutritious and tasty. The fruit of the Milkweed Vine is a significant caloric staple. I have a video  about it besides the article above.

Groundnuts also have to be cooked.

Third on my list would certainly be ground nuts, Apios americana, of which I also have two videos. Found nearly everywhere there is water east of the Rockies some people eat hundreds of pounds of them a year. Like the Bull Thistle ground nuts are nearly impossible to misidentify. The above- ground pea vine has leaflets of three, five, or seven, usually five sometimes nine. In the fall it has maroon pea-like flowers and puts on pods with edible seeds (cooked.) The nuts, actually tubers, are about the size of hens’ eggs, lumpy and brown, but they are arranged like a string of pearls. Lump then root, lump then root. They can fork and they do like to grow amongst other roots. But they are fairly easy to harvest and a full of calories and nutrition, and up to 26% protein. They must be cooked first, however. The greatest problem with ground nuts is they like to grow in the same locations as poison ivy so one has to be careful in their collection. And while they naturally elect to grow in damp spots they will readily grow in your normal vegetable garden. Video I here.  Video II is here. 

American lotus seeds are delicious cooked.

Fourth and highly seasonal is American lotus. There are two caloric staples with the American lotus, another plant that is nearly impossible to misidentify: The seeds and the roots. While the roots are edible like the lotus roots one finds in Asian markets, they are buried deep in the muck usually under several feet of water. Should the lake drain, they would be a staple worth going after, or if you have a backhoe. You could also cultivate them in shallow ponds. Otherwise we are interested in the seeds. When the seeds are ready to harvest literally thousands of shower-nozzle seed head can be gathered if you have something like a canoe and a knife. One person collects the other paddles. The seeds are like an elongated marble. They can be boiled like peanuts or roasted or dried et cetera. They do have a small green center (a tiny lotus plant) that is bitter and usually removed before eating the rest of the seed. Their flavor is very compelling, real food. Their video is here. 

Bull Thistle roots is edible raw or cooked.

Fifth place would be the Bull Thistle, of which I have two videos as well. Like the yam it will have a larger root near the end of the season (or first year in northern climates) or at the very beginning of the second season before it uses the energy stored in the root to reproduce. The plant is nearly impossible to misidentify and all the members of the genus (Cirsium) are edible. The root is edible raw or cooked. As mentioned above the best place to find them are in pastures. Usually pastures are not polluted and about the only two plants uneaten are pawpaws, an occasional yucca, and bull thistles. Above ground parts are edible as well but require more work where as the root is fairly easy to dig up. It is calorie positive. Video I, and, Video II.

Cooked spurge nettle roots peels easily.

The Spurge Nettle should be added to the round up as well.  Cnidoscolus stimulosus has a totally undeserved reputation for having roots buried very deep. In my several decades of foraging for them the root has always been within a foot below the surface. Here’s the problem: First, the root is brittle. Next it takes on a similar coloring of the ground it’s in. Third the root has a tap root that does go deep. So what happens is most folks actually throw the root away in the first few shovels of dirt then follow the tap root to great and unproductive depths because the root is buried under the dirt they have piled up. Boiled, peeled, and the center string removed, the al dente root tastes like pasta. My video is here. 

Coconuts are nutritious but take a lot of work.

As this is Florida I would be remiss if I did not add coconuts to the list. The ones at the southern end of the state are indeed edible. But, like all coconuts they are a bit of work to get at. They are a source of food, water, transfusion liquid, fat, sugar and fiber. About the only down side to the coconut, besides a pain to open, is too much of the liquid is laxative. But coconuts bring up a problem that is associated with the next caloric staples, they take energy to get. In this case, climbing a coconut tree (make a pair of rope handcuff except to go around your feet, holding them together. That is how you use your feet to climb a coconut palm.) Again, like many of the caloric staples, the coconut is nearly impossible to misidentify.

Cattails produce more starch than any other plant.

Nothing produces more starch per acre under cultivation than cattails, more than 6,000 pounds. They are also nearly impossible to misidentify and can be found mostly east of the Rockies. Cattails have been called the supermarket of the swamp but I think that is excessive because their starch requires some work to get. First, you are likely to get wet getting the roots (actually rhizomes) and the roots are usually in some very smelly swamp muck. Personally I roast the roots which is getting the most (good tasting) caloric bang for the work buck. The starch can be crushed out of the roots and settled off with water but that takes time and energy best suited to a village setting, ample time, and many hands. More so unlike the items above cattail starch is much like flour, nearly tasteless unless cooked some way. The video is here. 

Yellow Spatter Dock pods are full of edible seeds.

Yellow spatter dock seeds were a staple of the Klamath Indians of the Pacific Northwest. Despite glowing reports on the internet the root is not edible. However the properly prepared seeds are very tasty. Improperly prepared they are foul. I have warned you. Have patients with the seeds. Like American Lotus seeds, it is easy for one person in a canoe to collect a huge amount of seed pods at one time. You then put the seed pods in fresh water and let them rot for three weeks. Two weeks is not enough. You need at least three weeks of rotting to turn the bitter seeds sweet. Sometimes you can find some seeds that aren’t too bitter and can be cooked fresh but usually they are far better after the enzymes caused by the rotting have a chance to work their magic. If  you cut a pod open you can see the kernels line up on either side looking like little yellow seed corn. Incidentally, dry and whole they pop like popcorn, only not as big. Sometimes they are not too bitter and can be cooked as is. And while several traditional foraging books say the root is edible it is not. Don’t believe me? Go get a root and cook it any way you choose (I’ve tried them all.) If you eat it be prepared to throw up. The video is here. 

Processing acorns takes time.

There is no doubt that acorns are good food, once leached of their tannins. As I mention in the article Wild Flours it’s all about energy in and energy out. Whether acorns are calorie positive is a good debate. I suspect so but not by much. The reason is time. Collecting acorns goes fairly quickly, sorting out the potential good ones from the bad is easy. Drying them for a day or two in the sun requires little effort (though wildlife might try to steal a few.) What takes the time is shelling them. Putting them in the sun a few days helps but shelling is time consuming by hand (a good job for kids.) A mechanical nut sheller turns a job that takes hours into minutes and is worth the investment if you have a lot of acorns you can harvest. At this writing the shellers, which can be used on other nuts, run about $150. Once shelled the acorns need to be ground and then leached of their tannins. That can take a lot of time and energy depending on whether you are near fresh water or not. The bottom line is under good conditions acorns are calorie positive, under bad conditions a waste of time. Acorns were my fiftieth video. 

Pine cambium is bland in flavor, edible raw or cooked.

For local and international consumption one has to mention pine cambium.  As long as it is a member of the Pinus genus the white inner back is edible and very nutritious. A pound of pine cambium is like nine cups of  milk. Not bad, and the flavor is not piney. The cambium can be eaten raw, dried, powdered and added to bread and soups, fried or boiled. Boiling is the least desired means of cooking and brings out the worst in pine cambium. Video here. 

Wild Rice is a staple in many northern climates.

I would add wild rice to the list, and it is easily harvested, but not that much of it grows locally. It does grow here and there along the St. Johns but I’ve never found enough to harvest beyond a sample. In other areas it was a staple of Native Americans and is a sought-after gourmet food today. Like the Nuphar and Lotus seed pods, a person with a canoe can collect a lot of wild rice if he can find it. The usual method is to use one stick to bend the rice over the canoe and used the other stick to knock it off. You can then return to the same site a few days later and harvest again as not all the rice ripens at the same time. Wild rice also offers only a short window for harvesting, ten to fourteen days usually. It, too, requires some processing.  If it is going to be one of your caloric staples you have to watch it very closely.

Barnyard Grass needs a lot of pounding to winnow.

Also in the grass realm is Barnyard Grass, (Echinochloa crus-galli.) Barnyard grass isn’t difficult to identify. It usually grows in very damp spots and has lower stems that are red/purple. It was a staple for many Indian tribes but is difficult to dehusk. The seeds require a lot of  pounding before winnowing. On the positive side the plant can produce a crop in as little as 42 days. The key to the successful collection of Barnyard Grass involves finding a good size colony which should come into season all at the same time. One good place to find them is drying up holes in lakes low in water. Eastern Gamagrass can also be used.

Saw palmetto berries, strong flavored but nutritious.

One could add to the list Queen Palm Fruit (essentially mainline sugar like sugar cane) Pindo Palm fruit,  (video) with sugar and pectin, and Crowfoot Grass seeds (Dactyloctenium aegyptium) small, but fragile and easy to collect.  Add a palm grub or two and you have a balanced meal. And do I dare add Saw Palmetto berries, Serenoa repens? They do taste like vomit but are very nutritious, and the seed oil is good for cooking. Video here.  Cabbage Palm fruit is also reported as a staple of local indigenous tribes but they are a lot of work. Personally I think they ate the paint-thin pulp off the fruit then sprouted them then used them. Video here. 

Bunya Bunya seeds. Photo by Green Deane

PS: I wrote this original article about a decade ago. If I had one more possible stable to add it would be the seeds of the Bunya Bunya. The tree is an ornamental along the gulf coast and up the west coast of United States. When the “cones” are on the ground the seeds are edible (same with the Norfolk Pine.) The seeds are starchy, some times easy to get at and other times not. They are a good source of calories but not that common. Article here, video here.